Author Archives: Jacques Chester

The Mystery Continues

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Jacques Chester

I am now fast approaching the one year anniversary of the last time I performed a clean & jerk. For someone who describes himself as an amateur weightlifter, this is an unhappy state of affairs. The first half of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Weightlifting | Comments Off

On Selling To Consumers

Posted on January 5, 2013 by Jacques Chester

The software industry is a funny thing. For all of our heroic examples (Gates, Jobs, Page, Zuckerberg etc), it is difficult to tell whether we worship them because they are software-y types like us or whether we only do so … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Rants | Comments Off

Books I Read on Holidays

Posted on January 2, 2013 by Jacques Chester

My busted shoulder did me a single favour over the Christmas-New Years period. It excused me from being useful at my sister’s new home, where she and my brother-in-law are frantically working to fix the place up before moving in. … Continue reading →

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Fancying, part 2.

Posted on January 2, 2013 by Jacques Chester

For a long time I’ve linked from my book reviews to Amazon, giving both affiliate and direct links. I’m still doing it, but now I’m adding nice little visual callouts. To the right you can see an example. The concept … Continue reading →

Posted in Site News, Technical Notes | Comments Off

Fancying up the place

Posted on January 1, 2013 by Jacques Chester

Book reviews have steadily crowded out other posts on my blog. So I’ve fiddled with my theme to make them both visually distinct and, at the same time, stink the place up a bit less. It took more fiddling than … Continue reading →

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Picturing the Uncertain World

Posted on December 24, 2012 by Jacques Chester

Part of my current development project is conveying to people that estimates are uncertain. Every estimate comes with unforeseeable risks (and many foreseeable ones that nobody takes the time to foresee). But how best to represent this graphically? For some … Continue reading →

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Tested Advertising Methods

Posted on December 15, 2012 by Jacques Chester

I’m not sure where I got the recommendation for Tested Advertising Methods (5th Edition) by John Caples and edited by Fred E. Hahn. It might have been a comment on Hacker News or possibly one of the fine recommendations that … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Business | Comments Off

The Essence of Hayek (Part 1)

Posted on December 7, 2012 by Jacques Chester

In April I wrote a long, winding review of Drift into Failure. I was very proud of it: in the space of several thousand words I visited complex systems, fuzzy logic and the usefulness of positivistic thinking. It met with … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Economics and public policy, Systems | 1 Comment

Effective Work Breakdown Structures / Project Estimating and Cost Management

Posted on December 7, 2012 by Jacques Chester

As I said in my last review, I’m currently working up a tool to make it easier to create estimates. As part of my work I’ve been reading various bits of literature. Today Amazon delivered two books. At around 100 … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Estimation | Comments Off

Practical Software Project Estimation (3rd Ed)

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Jacques Chester

My current focus is to develop an estimation tool. Not just for software, but for a wide range of industries. Software estimation is, of course, closest to my heart, given that my line of work is software. This is where … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Software Engineering | Comments Off